Matthew Kaplan Photography

Industry & The Calumet Region

Industry & The Calumet Region

My roots in the industrial Calumet Region stretch back more than a century. In 1917 my grandfather and grandmother settled there from Eastern Europe, by way of nearby Chicago. They started a life and a family in Whiting Indiana which eventually included me.

Born in the boom years following World War Two, I grew up amid vistas of sprawling mills and refineries, operating at their peak capacities. Beginning in the 1970's, I've spent much of my personal photographic vision documenting, and responding to, the ongoing evolution of this singular landscape, formed through the interplay of man and nature with industry and commerce.